10 Things You Should Consider When Hiring a Social Media Marketing Service

Social media isn’t just a place for teenagers to share gossip. There are opportunities to make money.

It’s not just teenagers who are online. 68% of all U.S. adults are Facebook users. Two-thirds visit Facebook daily.

Having a presence on social media is a great way to reach out to customers. It’s also easy and affordable to use the sites to find new customers.

But it’s best to leave social media marketing to the professionals. Here are 10 things you should consider when hiring a social media marketing service.

1. Understands Your Objectives

A good social media marketing service wants to know your objectives. Their goal is to provide a strategy that’s custom made for your business needs.

The right company to work with will create the strategy. Once it’s agreed upon, they will execute that strategy. Next, they will continue to modify that strategy until it works.

If the company starts telling you their generic plans that they execute for every other company, they aren’t worth your time or money.

And if they can’t answer what will happen if things don’t go according to plan, keep searching. Look for a partnership where they’re willing to identify when it’s not working effectively and find a solution.

2. Has Monitoring and Consolidation Capabilities

The right social media marketing service will have a way to monitor the success of your campaign. And they’ll show you how to understand and monitor those statistics yourself.

Since there are at least 107 social media sites, it’s necessary to work with a company utilizing software that consolidates all your accounts. From there you can view, post, and answer from one window.

Most programs also allow for scheduling posts. Make sure you can view follower demographics, traffic sources, and which posts are most popular.

If you can, find a service offering monitoring of such keywords as your brand name, products, and other important phrases.

3. Asks About and Helps Further Define Your Brand

Unless you’ve created a brand new product no one has ever seen before, your business has competition. Even if you do have a new product, you should still brand yourself.

Branding creates a layer of built-in trust between your company and potential customers. It helps them begin to recognize your product and your company’s values.

Branding is also about consistency. Read more here about why consistency is so important to a business.

4. Knows Which Sites to Have Profiles On

Not all social media sites are best for your company. Each one attracts a slightly different crowd.

For example, LinkedIn attracts college graduates and those in high-income households. In fact, 50% of Americans with a college degree use LinkedIn. Only 9% of Americans with a high school diploma or less do.

Make sure the company you choose knows which social media sites will have your niche target market spending time on it. Otherwise, it’s a waste of time and money to have your business listed on a site.

5. Considers Themselves to Be a Social Media Marketing Service Company

Make sure to work with a business who considers themselves as a social media marketing service company. Otherwise, they might now be as up-to-date with your social media marketing needs.

A digital marketing company is usually like a general store. They have the service, but they may not be highly skilled in social media.

A content marketing company tend to focus on blogging. They may not find social media as an important part of a marketing strategy.

6. Knows How to Measure Your Success

Never work with a company who doesn’t know how to measure the success of a marketing campaign.

You want to know how many people each campaign reached. You want to know how they measure social media growth. That means knowing how many new fans and followers you gain.

The social media marketing service will have engagement numbers to show you. You’ll know how many likes and comments your strategy receives.

You’ll also want numbers showing how much your website traffic increased as a direct result of your social media strategy. And last but not least are the stats on lead generation.

Have them identify what metrics are most important to your strategy. If it doesn’t make sense, find another company.

7. Is Experienced in Your Industry

No business has everyone as their ideal customer. It’s not possible.

Instead, every business should find out who their niche audience is. The better you can identify the perfect client, the easier it is to find marketing opportunities to reach them.

The same is true for a social media marketing service. Not every company is their ideal client.

Make sure they understand your industry. Ask if they have experience in your industry.

If they don’t, find a company who is experienced.

8. Has Good Communication Skills

Part of any successful relationship is good communication. It should be easy to reach the social media marketing company.

Make sure they assign you a point person. Then make sure that point person is available to you.

If they don’t respond in a timely manner, refuse to answer questions, or you find that each time you reach out to them you get a new point person, this isn’t the right company for you.

9. Has a List of References

Ask them for a list of references. Call up those references and ask a few questions.

Make sure the businesses are similar to yours. Ask what they liked best about working with the social media marketing service company.

Then ask what they liked least about working with them. Listen to how eager or reluctant they are to speak about the company.

Sometimes, it’s what’s not being said that’s most important. But if you find that you’re hearing consistent and positive reviews both from references and from online review sites, then it’s a good bet you’ll enjoy working with the company.

10. Has a Good Client to Account Manager Ratio

Some companies are more interested in quantity than quality. That gets reflected back in all the work they do.

Ask how many other companies your account manager is currently working with. If they have a high volume of customers they’re expected to work with, chances are you won’t be a high priority.

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